Vladimir Putin did not need to try to steal the Olympic show when this
particular Olympic show, the most expensive the world has ever seen, was all
his, writes Ian Chadband in Sochi

He did not parachute in, leaping from a plane like Her Majesty, nor didRussia’s action man president offer an impression of 007 - but Vladimir Putin did not need to try to steal the Olympic show when this particular Olympic show, the most expensive the world has ever seen, was all his.

Putin demanded a wondrous launch to this 22nd edition of the Winter Olympic Games here in Sochi and with £31 billion being ploughed into making the world gasp at his “new” Russia’s extraordinary reach and ambition, unsurprisingly his wish was granted with a ceremony which, even if it lacked London 2012’s humour and fun, proved a gasp-inducing, visual journey through his country’s history.

Wonderful though it was, the three hour homage to Russian greatness was not without the odd hitch. Just moments before the president took his seat in the VIP seats, five giant snowflakes hanging from the roof of the Fisht Olympic Stadium were supposed to converge, morph dazzlingly into the five Olympic rings and be illuminated by fireworks.

Sadly, only four worked, the fireworks had to be abandoned and when Putin strolled in with a stony face, doubtless very unimpressed, everyone’s first thought must have been for the technical operators, and what may now befall them. Heaven help whoever got that bit wrong.

Still, for the rest of this impressive night before he officially opened the Games, the tiger-hunting president looked like the cat with the cream, the big winner, flanked by his glamorous companion, as he watched the gravity-defying, dreamy tableaux floating high in the arena along with 40,000 in the biggest of those space-age venues that have miraculously sprouted from swampland on the banks of the Black Sea here in Joe Stalin’s favourite resort.

He was watching the coming out party here for his improbable project that has been widely described as “Olympiada Vladimirovna” -- Vladimir’s daughter - and, even if she has been caught up in a few controversies, she really did look fabulous as three billion people around the world supposedly looked in.

If there was no Barack Obama, no David Cameron and no Angela Merkel around, perhaps scared off by being associated with this ostentatious, controversy-packed show of strength, then that was their loss, Putin’s self-satisfied look seemed to suggest.

For if the object was to demonstrate to them that “never mind not being able to finish the hotels for visitors on time and don’t mention the gay rights controversies or security worries, look what we can do when we really put our mind to it”, it was a spectacular success - just as China had dazzled the world, while simultaneously failing to convince the world, in 2008 in the Bird’s Nest Stadium.

This was Putin’s vision of his Russia, connected by its majestic past to an exciting future, all seen through the dreams of a young girl called “Lubov” - Russian for love - and all brought vividly to life by Russia’s very own Danny Boyle, a splendid, floppy-haired executive creative director and screenwriter, Konstantin Ernst.

The mascots of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics during opening ceremony (REUTERS)

“Tonight is about our dreams, the dreams of our past and our dreams for the future of Russia,” he said. “I wanted to break the stereotype of our country. What is Russia for an average person of this world? It is caviar and matreshka dolls, balalaika or ushanka hats, or even just a bear. These things are all part of us but they are not the whole of us.”

Yet from the start of the show, when Russia’s varied landscapes all sailed serenely beneath the vast roof and the audience were effectively given an A to Z of Russia’s greatest figures and achievements, from Peter the Great to the periodic table, it was obvious this was going to be a bravura answer to our Branagh-esque championing of Shakespeare and Brunel in 2012.

War and Peace and Swan Lake and the Russian Revolution were all rolled out.

Er, no stereotyping there, then? Yet the scenes were carried out with such élan and so differently, featuring some of Russia’s greatest dance and musical artists, that they did feel completely original.

And, yes, the night did include some humour. How else could you explain the presence of tATu in the pre-ceremony show?

Here were the Russian faux lesbian pop duo singing their hit Not Gonna Get Us, a ditty about the defiance of two schoolgirls in love, which seemed quite a curious answer from the organisers to all the outrage surrounding the Russian laws against gay rights “propaganda”.

Even more bizarre, indeed, when the entire vast Russian team also marched out to the tune.

Ernst, though, just brushed aside the idea that this was just an exercise in showing the world just how open-minded Russians really were by claiming the song was chosen only because it was one of their few international pop hits. “Unlike London, we can’t boast a plethora of pop stars,” he deadpanned.

The creator evidently also wanted his version of From Russia with Love to be on the menu here, even while the biggest army of security forces ever witnessed at the opening ceremony of any Games were on alert for the prospect of terrorism outside.

Inside the arena, stories began circulating around the press benches about a passenger having tried to hijack an Istanbul-bound jet and turn it towards to Sochi but the audience just carried on blissfully unaware, enjoying the airborne troikas and illuminated skaters, feeling exactly the sort of pride Britons felt on that Friday night in Stratford.

Olympic Park during the opening ceremony of the XXII Olympic Winter Games (CAMERA PRESS)

Ernst even promised to make the athletes’ march, the most boring part of any Olympic ceremony, a more, innovative affair by allowing them for once to emerge dramatically from beneath the ground via a ramp to the arena floor onto which a map of the world had been projected.

Sorry, it was a good try but it was still predictably dull, except for the marvellous bounding, dancing Venezuelan flag bearer and sole athlete, skier Antonio Pardo. Oh, and an Austrian athlete fell over. Still that was apparently not enough to rouse Princess Anne, who was snapped reading a book while the parade continued. Not War and Peace, surely?

Her British team, which is seeking to land its best haul of medals - four - since the inaugural winter Games in Chamonix in 1924, were led into the arena by short-track speed skater, Jon Eley, who is competing in his third Olympics.

The parade needed a bit of star quality and it came in the unlikely form of Vanessa-Mae among Thailand’s small group of athletes and officials. Any time a glamorous international violin superstar qualifies for the giant slalom in the winter Olympics is good enough reason to celebrate.

Then to the climax. Tennis star Maria Sharapova, who grew up in Sochi, was among the final bearers of a torch which had been to the North Pole, to the top of the highest mountain in Europe, to the bottom of the world’s deepest lake and even into space this past four months.

Yet the ultimate honour of lighting the cauldron at the open end of the arena, which in turn ignited a flame path to the massive main cauldron outside in the Olympic Park, fell to two of Russia’s all-time sporting heroes, figure skater Irina Rodnina and ice hockey goalie Vladislav Tretiak. Putin’s grand games had been ignited, safely, expensively and brilliantly.